Zambia has published a full list of its 44 external creditors that shows the central government owes Chinese lenders more than one-third of its total $13.4 billion of foreign-currency debt stock.
The Finance Ministry revealed on Wednesday that Zambia’s total public debt to foreign and local lenders was just shy of $27 billion at the end of June.
The figure was equal to about 115% of GDP, according to the latest World Bank figures from 2019, and could be more because Zambia’s economy contracted sharply last year.
The figures published by the ministry on its website include $16.86 billion in foreign holdings, of which $520 million is interest arrears.
The figures showed that the remaining $10.1 billion was local currency debt.
The list includes more obscure funding sources, such as a $306 million loan from a local furniture supplier called Mikalile Trading Co.
Zambia, which stopped servicing almost all its foreign loans last year, owes about $3 billion to the Export–Import Bank of China, nearly $3.2 billion to Eurobond holders, and hundreds of millions of dollars to commercial lenders from Israel to Johannesburg-based bank Investec Plc.
“In line with its commitment for greater transparency, the Ministry of National Planning and Finance of Zambia has published a detailed summary of debt figures as of end-June 2021,” a statement from the ministry said.
Zambia’s foreign debt is spread across diverse regions, with a %6 billion chunk owed to China and rest owed to various banks, nations and multilateral institutions.
